Easter on Pinos

Somewhere on San Juan:



This past Easter Sunday I was blessed and happy to be able to get out and ride Los Pinos. I wanted to ride it once before summer when the heat makes the trail pretty much impossible to ride.

I got up at about 5:50AM to go to church and then came home and rested a bit before hitting the trailhead with Matt, Troy and Brian.

I was a bit nervous about riding Los Pinos because I hadn't been on it in about a year and I haven't been feeling very confident in my technical skills lately. I was worried that I would bite off more than I could chew on some difficult section and crash hard.

On the way up San Juan I was feeling good and was clearing most of the switchbacks. Then I fell over the side of the hill. Haha. I'm still not really sure what happened. I was on the trail one minute and then when I tried to ride down into a rut I simply tipped over the wrong side of the trail and fell down a slope.

I ended up landing on a bush and straddled it to prevent further falling. I ended up scraping up my inner thighs pretty bad due to the awkward position. It was like I was riding a horse, but instead it was a big bush with angry branches. Ha.

Brian and Matt helped me back up onto the trail and we kept going. The trip to Cocktail wasn't bad and I was trying hard to save my energy for the descent down Pinos. Somewhere on the trip up Troy told me he had cleared the entire trail without putting a foot down from the parking lot to Cocktail. I am so jealous. I'd love to be able to do that one day.

We picked up another rider when we left Cocktail because he said he had always wanted to ride up San Juan and then down Pinos. He told us he had gone down Pinos before, but after riding with him for a bit I think he was either lying or just way out of shape. Either way we politely suggested he take New San Juan back down instead of continuing on with us.

The final push to Blue Jay was pretty uneventful.



From Blue Jay we actually took a shortcut. There is a singletrack off the side of the paved road going towards Trabuco and it leads up to the fire road right before "The Wall." It was steep in a few spots, but I guess it saves time? I love exploring new trails but I wasn't in the mood for it on Sunday because I didn't want to waste energy on a new trail that I would need later for Pinos.

Climbing The Wall:



At the top of Trabuco we took a quick break and Troy popped open a water container that was stashed in the bushes. We all took some water from it and proceeded down Pinos.

At Pinos Peak:



The trip to Pinos Peak wasn't too tough. Had to hike a few sections, but it wasn't bad. I decided to change my hiking approach for this ride. Instead of hiking by pushing my bike with my arms fully stretched out, I decided to push the bike with my arms kind of tucked into my chest. The idea is that I need to save the energy in my arms for braking and bike control later. I get really tired by having my arms out straight and sort of locked because most of the energy comes from my arms instead of my legs when hiking.

Los Pinos:



The rest of the trip down Pinos was pretty fun. I lowered my seat at the peak and actually really enjoyed myself on several sections. The hiking wasn't nearly as bad as I remember it. Maybe that's because I've been training for Vision Quest and have become fairly used to hiking on rides.

The trail was steep and loose, but for some reason it didn't bother me as much as I thought it might. Lowering the seat and leaning way back made me feel fairly comfortable. The only thing that was bothering me was the power of my brakes (not quite enough) and the noise my brakes were making (SCREEEEEEEEECH).

I did have one pretty good crash at around the mid point of the ride down. I came around a corner and saw a long, steep descent in front of me. For some reason I stopped and went to walk it because it seemed a bit too much for me. Then I decided that I should try to ride it, so I walked back a bit and prepared to go for it. Bad idea.

I went maybe 5 yards before my front tire stuck and I went flying over the handlebars. The bike literally launched me and I flew forward and landed on my butt. Not sure how that happened, but it was better than going face first. I ended up with a few bruises and scrapes, but nothing too bad. I have an orange sized bruise that looks pretty gnarly on my butt and it hurts to sit sometimes, but it's all part of the experience I suppose.

Taking a quick break:



The last few miles saw me walking quite a bit. I came up to a few sections that had some big ruts down the middle so I just walked them instead of risking crashing again. Most of them weren't that long. I'd really love to practice more and ride some of those sections in the future.

The very bottom was rough, but it was a lot more rideable than I had remembered. There were only a few short rock gardens that I had to walk down. Otherwise the trail was very easy to ride and didn't present too many challenges.

Final example of a typical Pinos descent:



I am very, very happy to have finished the ride with a decent riding time (meaning not including breaks) and to have finished strong. I didn't cramp and I didn't bonk. I was able to avoid muscle failure in my forearms from excessive braking and I felt more confident than I thought I would on everything I ended up riding.

Only sour note at the end was that I ripped ANOTHER pair of Pearl Izumi shorts on the nose of my saddle. I mean come on. It's not a knife or anything. Why do shorts keep ripping? So stupid.

Everyone else survived with Troy being the only one not to crash. Matt had an endo and another crash on the lower rock garden section and Brian rode into the side of the trail four or five times. Overall it was a fantastic way to spend Easter though.

Easter on Pinos